


If not now, when?

by superloonyluna



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Jamilton - Freeform, M/M, Marriage Proposal, a lot of fluff, at this point who's even surprised, i can't write for pancakes, i wrote this to procrastinate the fic I'm supposed to be working on, so welcome to another episode of, which normally isn't my thing but here we are
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 05:28:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26966695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superloonyluna/pseuds/superloonyluna
Summary: While on holiday in a small Spanish town, Thomas proposes. Alexander promptly panics, and pelts him with tomatoes.
Relationships: Alexander Hamilton/Thomas Jefferson
Comments: 14
Kudos: 63





	If not now, when?

**Author's Note:**

> Hello; I saw a photo on pinterest and had to write a one-shot about it. Whelp.  
> Anyway, c'est la vie.

Even in the early morning, the weight of the late August sun is soporific – broken only slightly by the breeze that accompanied its lazy drift through the fluttering linen curtains of their bedroom. Around him, the world was still quiet. The Spaniards, Thomas feels, were his kind of people, whose ingrained routine revolved around late nights and early mornings; slipping into the sheets at two or three and remaining there until the sun was well risen in the sky. 

The bed is warm, engulfing him and allowing his returning consciousness to slip languidly in and out of focus. His face is squished in the slight dip between their two pillows, and Thomas ventures a blind, involuntary hand into the space beside him – finally blinking open an eye when his fist closes around empty sheets. 

“Alex?” He calls, his voice slightly hoarse from sleep. 

After a moment, the light pattering of footfalls down the hall brings an unbidden smile to his lips: the sound grown into a familiar comfort over the past three years. The smell of rich, strong Spanish coffee hits him before Alexander does – throwing himself down unceremoniously beside him with an arm slung over his back and successfully squashing his hand. 

He makes a half-hearted attempt to withdraw it; Alexander grins, and presses down with more force. 

Thomas frowns at him, groaning by way of a reprimand: “where were you?”

“Out!” Even through the gradually fading haze, Thomas can feel the excitement vibrating off him in waves. 

“The streets are already crowded.”

“Have they started yet?”

Alexander shakes his head against the pillow. 

Today is _La Tomatina_ \- an annual festival held in a small town on the Eastern coast of Spain that revolved solely around the ritual of throwing ripened tomatoes at as many people as you possibly could. Alexander’s reaction upon hearing about it had tugged at Thomas’ heart, making him weak in a way that only Alexander could. There wasn’t really much Thomas was able to say no to around him. 

So here they were amid the old, twisting streets of Buñol. Despite his initial response of an exaggerated eye roll, Thomas could grudgingly admit it was a beautiful town. He hated the jostling sidewalks of New York, incarcerated by skyscrapers and insistency, and Alexander knew it. Here he is remind of the quiet pull of Monticello. The sun beat down on his skin with the same heat. 

“Wake _up._ ” Alexander bounced off the bed before pulling back the curtains. The light hits Thomas in a blunt reprove and he mumbles a weak protest. 

“For god’s sake.” Alexander walks around the bed. “I even made you coffee.” 

“Coffee?” He asks, raising a hopeful head. 

“Yes, coffee. Here.” 

He reaches for it; the mug is made from a heavy clay, adorned with tribal affiliations in sepia and russet brown, and sits in his hands with a comforting weight. 

Alexander makes it halfway across the room before Thomas brakes down to the inevitable, holding out his arm. “Wait - come back.” 

He pushes himself up properly, placing the mug back down as Alexander returns in spite of his feigned annoyance, crawling into his lap and looping his arms around his neck; his eyes softening as he looks down at him. 

This, these moments, were Thomas’ favourite part of each morning. Despite his relentless pace, his wild, untamed energy, Alexander would pause – would abandon his writing, his debt plans, his rebuttal points; and would curl up in his lap. It made something in Thomas settle; for a moment everything would quieten, and the world consisted only of them. 

Thomas tilts his head back slightly in offering and Alexander bends to press a slow kiss to his lips; open mouthed, warm and soft. Thomas smiles as he pulls back, letting his eyes drift over Alexander’s face. Even now, months later, it still baffles him that he is allowed to do that. No more desperate, covert and quickly hidden glances snatched from across the congress floor. No more picking fights with the unacknowledged purpose of being able to stare, uninterrupted into his eyes; heated for an entirely different reason than what was gnawing at Thomas’ conscience. 

The light indulged a gentle touch across Alexander’s cheeks, fanning out his lashes and haloing the soft curls falling in a loose, uncaring frame around his face. Thomas presses his forehead up against Alexander's, saying in a soft whisper; “ _Bonjour, chéri._ ”

Alexander smiles against his lips in a last brief kiss before pulling away, springing up and pattering out of the room. Thomas watches him go, before downing the coffee and pushing back the covers, looking around the scattered array of clothes littering the floor for something he wouldn’t feel too disappointed in loosing to tomato juice stains. 

He shuffles into some linen shorts, then makes his way to the cool stone bathroom, trimmed in Spanish tiles and a ledge housing an overflowing geranium. The water, cold and unforgiving against the soft skin of his eyelids, does the work the coffee had neglected, and, unbidden, the slight pang of nerves that had been following him since their arrival settles in the pit of his stomach. 

There is another reason for their trip that presses a small, almost imperceptible weight into his pocket in the form of a thin gold band. This, like everything else Thomas did, was meticulously planned. Every detail – from what he would say to exactly when he would say it – had been carefully thought out, and rehearsed purely for the scrutiny of James and Gil, who, sniffing, had pronounced it ‘adequate,’ but only after wiping away a tear. 

A part of him resented the fact that he was like this: that he couldn’t just live spontaneously from moment to moment. That everything he did had to be thought out. Sometimes, he longed for the freedom of not having to plan, to prepare, to consider. But this was for Alexander. If it wasn’t perfected, it wasn’t good enough.

Tonight, he had decided. It had to be tonight. 

At dusk, after the festival, he would take Alexander through the path of narrow streets that led to an abandoned, slightly crumbling castle overlooking the small valley. Although the interior had been patched up, part of the ceiling had broken away so the tables were scattered under the open sky. 

Thomas had stumbled upon it while he was travelling Europe on his return home from France, just before he had met Alexander, and hadn’t been able to get it out of his mind. 

Alexander brushes through the doorway just as he is putting away his toothbrush; catching his eye in the mirror and grinning, a hair tie between his teeth as he pulls his hair up into a loose bun. He raises his eyebrows in a silent question. 

Thomas nods, smiling with slight exasperation at the ridiculousness of what Alexander is about to subject him to. 

He wonders, briefly, if Alexander would be pliant enough for him to snag another kiss. Before he has the chance to act on the thought, however, Alexander is already off down the hall, calling; “ready?”

The streets are bustling around them as they make their way down towards the centre, muffled shouts already wafting their way up through the rooftops. Alexander tugs on his hand, tripping over the uneven stones in his excitement. Thomas runs behind him down steep, cobbled streets and steps, grinning at his childlike exuberance, until they round a corner and are abruptly greeted by an onslaught of red and pandemonium. 

The street is filled with people: wriggling like sardines in a can and ankle deep in mushed tomatoes.

The smell washed over them; Thomas has never seen so much red in all his life. There are stains on walls, gutters and windowpanes; tomatoes overflowing into the street out of open backed trucks, men standing waist deep in their belly and dropping handfuls into the elbowing crowds. There is a rising clamour of mingled shouts and laughter as tomatoes stain faces, arms, hair and clothes. 

Alexander stands at the edge of it all with his mouth slightly agape; until a misaimed tomato slaps him in the shoulder and jolts him out of reverie. 

Biting back a laugh, Thomas looks down at him. “Well…um. I guess that’s our cue?”

Alexander says nothing, but turns to him with a slightly mischievous glint in his eye before running headfirst into the throng and arming himself with tomatoes from a crammed basket. He spins around without warning and lobs one straight at Thomas’ chest. 

An undignified yelp escapes him, and he pauses for a second, momentarily distracted by the wide, unabashed grin that rounds Alexander’s cheeks. Thomas follows him, and they weave their way through the crowd; throwing poorly aimed tomatoes whenever there is a gap between people. 

Soon, they are both laughing; stained with juice and fruit. Chasing him, giggling, Thomas ensnares his arms around Alexander’s shoulders and squashes a handful of tomatoes into his shirt. Alexander squeals against him; and Thomas holds on despite his squirming limbs. 

Alexander pulls back, reaching for another handful before turning around to face him again; giddy and breathless, and he looks at him like you would a hurricane: wildly, and with a beating heart. In that moment Thomas has never loved anyone more in his life. 

The plans he had been so adamantly sticking to fall away. He had never been very good at following the rules where Alexander was concerned. 

“Alex.” He tugs on his hand. 

Alexander pauses, seconds before hurling his catch, his smile slipping just a fraction. 

“What?”

Briefly, he entertains the idea of taking advantage of Alexander’s momentary stillness with a fistful of tomatoes. This probably isn’t the time. 

“Alex, I -” Thomas lets his eyes drift over his face; people and flying tomatoes fading around them as he meets Alexander’s gaze. 

He takes a step closer, bringing his hand up to brush a stray piece of hair out of Alexander’s face; he’s staring up, eyes slightly wide. 

“What? Thomas, you’re scaring me.” 

“Alexander,” he whispers, swallowing. “You mean more to me than anything else in this world. And you make me happier than I ever thought I could be.” 

Letting go of Alexander’s hand, his heart beating loud in his ears, Thomas fumbles in his pocket for the familiar coolness of metal. For a panicked moment his hand brushes only against cotton, but then the band slips around his slightly shaking finger. 

Alexander realises what he’s about to do a second before he says it. 

“No.” He says, his eyes getting, if possible, even wider. “No, no. No you don’t!”

He looks around desperately, seeming to teeter on the edge of blurting out another protest. 

Thomas bites back a laugh. “Darlin’ -” 

“No!”

On a whim, he throws the tomatoes, still clutched in his hand, as though in an attempt at distraction. Thomas dodges them, now laughing in earnest. “Alex! Stop!”

“No!” He turns, grabbing more, and stumbles backwards, pelting them in an endless torrent. 

“Alex!” Thomas wheezes, trying to stop laughing long enough to catch his breath. “Stop throwing tomatoes at me I’m trying to tell you I love you.” 

“I know what you’re doing!” Alexander narrows his eyes suspiciously, barricading himself behind a basket. “You fool no one, Jefferson.” 

Thomas snorts, darting out a hand and snagging Alexander’s arm. 

He yelps, jerking his hand away but Thomas is stronger; pulling Alexander towards him and encircling an arm around his waist. As though by instinct, Alexander loops his arms around his neck, and Thomas can see the smile dancing behind his eyes even as he frowns. 

“You’re stupid, you know that, _chéri_?”

A small grin finally cracks through his façade. “Guilty.” 

“Alexander,” Thomas tries again, taking a breath and resting their foreheads together. Alexander has stopped wriggling, and is looking up at him softly, his eyes round. Thomas is lost in them. 

“Alex, please marry me?”

He lets out a soft, weighted laugh that turns quickly into a stifled sob. Thomas holds him closer, his heart in his throat as Alexander nods shakily. He squeezes his eyes shut around his relief, his breath coming out in an unsteady gasp. 

“Yes.” Suddenly Alexander is tackling him, peppering his face with kisses. “Yes, yes, yes.” Thomas stumbles back as Alexander throws himself on him without warning and he holds on, smiling against his lips. 

And it’s not at all what he had planned: it’s rash and sudden and utterly impulsive. But it makes Thomas feel in the same way that Alexander does – wild, and giddily, joyously alive. And in that moment, among the tomato stained streets and the warm Spanish sun, with Alexander’s legs wrapped around his waist and their future tugging at their fingertips; there he is also free.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Primo Levi's book - 'If not now, when?'
> 
> As always, please let me know what you think! I'm pretty much just living for comments at this point. Honestly, it's pretty pathetic. 
> 
> much love x 
> 
> p.s I'm over on tumblr as @superloonyluna


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